A month or so later we’re both off from work on the same day. Frank Garcia is in his backyard raking and I’m finishing the deck in mine. I hear the leaves rustling through the weathered fence. Three men from the electric company are going from yard to yard, cutting down trees and limbs that hang over the lines. Snow isn’t far off. One of the men is hooking himself onto the tree between our houses, whose branches reach into both our yards. In a minute or so, he’ll fire up his buzz saw and get to work. He is wearing camouflage pants, but I can see him clear as daylight. Given how high he is, I’m sure Garcia can see him, too.
She said she couldn’t because her week was bananas. I told her I like bananas. I said I cut them up and put them in my cereal in the morning. I don’t cut up a banana every morning, though, and I told her this. Sometimes I can’t find a ripe banana. Sometimes I go to five different stores and can’t find a single ripe banana. You’d think it was a conspiracy. You’d think all the grocers, supermarkets, and bodegas have it in for me. And I won’t buy green bananas. I won’t give them the satisfaction. Green bananas are like life insurance, to my way of thinking. I’ve always been shortsighted like this, can never see myself living long enough to enjoy a green banana or collect life insurance. I mean anyone’s life insurance, not mine, of course. I know that I can’t collect on my own life insurance. I don’t think I’m anyone’s beneficiary, either. Not even my father, if he’s still alive. He disowned me years ago, but I don’t blame him for that. He had better things to do than own someone who doesn’t have the foresight to buy a green banana. It’s not like I don’t know that green bananas turn yellow in time and in theory. It’s just that I can’t believe it actually happens to real people. I’m sure if I were to buy a green banana and bring it home, it’d stay green in perpetuity. I don’t know what this says about me except that maybe I’m shortsighted or am faithless, except I’m not sure it’s true that I’m faithless. I’m sure there’s something I believe in, and if you gave me a second, I could probably come up with a whole list. My father wouldn’t be listed if he’s still alive, although I doubt he is. I never saw him as the type that’d live a long time. I probably get that from him, if I get anything at all, other than the cutting up of bananas. If he’s dead, I’m sure he died standing up and talking back because that’s how I remember him. He wouldn’t take anything off anybody and that’s another thing I get from him. This is what I told her when she said her week was bananas and before she even had a chance to reply, I said, And you’d better believe it, sister.
